Could rice become as crucial as petrol in the fight against climate change? In 2023, Nguyen Duy Thuan, General Director of Loc Troi Group (Loc Troi) Vietnam, was sceptical. His company, the largest rice producer in the country, faced a pivotal moment in its journey. Following a successful pilot program involving 1,000 farmers, the company had started scaling sustainable rice production (SRP). Sustainable rice had much lower emissions and used fewer resources than traditional rice production, which accounted for 12% of global methane emissions and significantly threatened the climate. The pilot had reduced pesticide use by 12%, water use by 25%, greenhouse gas emissions by a third, and flooding and straw burning by using organic treatments. It had also lowered production costs and increased profit margins by 18%. But despite such demonstrable benefits, Loc Troi continued to struggle to convince farmers to grow sustainable rice, which constituted only 5% of its total export volume, due to the time-consuming and costly new practices. Scaling sustainable rice required large investments and without government grants, could be financially draining for the company. Loc Troi's other businesses, like vegetable seeds and fertilisers, were also profitable, so over-investing in rice could hinder their growth. Thuan pondered on how to scale sustainable rice and tap into future demand with Loc Troi's expertise.

Established in 2003 with 120 volunteers, Food from the Heart (FFTH) is a Singapore-based charity organisation founded to alleviate hunger by providing reliable, consistent, and sustainable food support to the less fortunate through food distribution programmes. FFTH's digital transformation journey began in the middle of 2018 and it went through an overhaul in 2019. Among several digitalisation projects rolling out in early 2020, one was about distributing beneficiary cards with a Quick Response (QR) code to its beneficiaries. Having no direct access to beneficiaries and needing to rely on its community partners, the beneficiary card could be a game-changer for FFTH, yet implementing these cards through its community partners would be a challenge. The case requires students to analyse the managerial capabilities of a charity organisation and discuss how change management and change leadership could digitally transform an organisation. At the end of the discussion, students will recommend a stakeholder management strategy for FFTH to continue its digitalisation initiatives with its community partners.

In early 2023, Claire Chiang, co-founder of Banyan Tree Group (Banyan Tree), a Singapore-based multinational hospitality brand with several hotels and resorts across the globe, was contemplating growth plans for the company. Banyan tree was aiming to double its existing portfolio to 100 hotels and resorts by 2025, while remaining competitive in a market dominated by large international players, and staying true to its brand philosophy of creating shared value (CSV). Banyan Tree had entered the market with unique proposition of providing culturally rich and unique destination experiences with an innovative 'pool villa' concept to luxury travellers while focussing on sustainability. The company had also concentrated on a 'Responsible Leadership' approach to drive growth and business diversification. Could Banyan Tree expand rapidly while staying true to its core values of CSV and sustainable development? Could it continue to maintain its competitive advantage when other players were also increasingly adopting sustainable development goals? The case can be used in Strategy and Finance courses that teach Competitive Strategy, Creating Shared Value (CSV), and Sustainable Business as a business strategy in graduate and executive education classes.

This case talks about the 3P (People Planet Profit) strategies of Ant Group backed MYbank, which was established as an online bank in China, as part of Alibaba's ecosystem, with the vision of providing inclusive finance services to SMEs and farmers in rural China. In April 2022, however, the Chinese economy was grappling with the after effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and macro-economic trends had predicted slower growth for the year. The aggregate net profit of China's commercial banks was expected to grow at around 10% in 2022, compared to 12.6% in 2021. However, despite the challenges, there was optimism at MYbank as the company had reported a year-on-year growth of 31.6% for the first quarter of 2022, with loans and advances for the first quarter totalling a staggering US$ 27 billion. Banking had traditionally always paid more attention to high-net-worth individuals, fewer accounts and more one-on-one relationships. MYbank however, had focussed on technology, innovation, quick transactions, large volume of low-income consumers, and lower operational costs to create a sustainable business model. However, ripple effects of the pandemic were plaguing its target customer segment - SMEs and farmers from low-income backgrounds in rural China - who were grappling with economic uncertainties. Could MYbank continue to adopt a low margin, high volume model like assembly line businesses to target large swathes of the rural population and generate profit in the process? Could MYbank become the McDonald's of digital banking in China?

Set in January 2020, this case describes the entrepreneurial journey of Hayman Microfinance (Hayman), which provided financial solutions to the low-income strata and rural population of Myanmar who had limited or no access to banking services. Over 2015-2020, Hayman grew to become a 25-branch strong company with a loan portfolio of US$29 million, 129,000 active borrowers, and 155,000 depositors. Besides its product attributes, targeted marketing approach, trained work force and effective delivery, Hayman's success could also be attributed to its corporate social responsibility (CSR) thrust in the areas of health, education, safety, and the environment. Over 2017-2019, many international players had entered Myanmar. While some of these entrants had big spending budgets, they lacked first-hand experience of the country's rural poor, and had limited knowledge of the demanding bureaucratic processes followed by the Myanmar government in the financial sector. Sultan Marenov, the Executive Chairman and Managing Director of Hayman, believed that Hayman would be an ideal partner for such investors; however, he was yet to clinch a satisfactory deal. Would highlighting Hayman's CSR program as a core element of its business model strengthen the company's value proposition to potential investors? How much did the social activities contribute towards building the company's brand equity among its key stakeholders, and a sustainable competitive advantage?

This case is set in 2019, and describes the social-entrepreneurial journey of Bettr Barista ('BB'), a Singapore-based coffee company. Launched in 2011 as a coffee academy, BB offered disadvantaged women and youth in Singapore a four-month long holistic programme providing barista skills for employability, emotional and physical training for psychological wellbeing, and an internship for learning on the job. At the end of the programme, BB helped the trainees secure employment in the industry. By end-2018, it had trained and placed more than 60 individuals with the support of government bodies, social sector organisations and private sector companies. To support and sustain its social goals, BB undertook for-profit coffee workshops for corporates and individuals, and ran other commercial businesses including a coffee roastery, retail coffee outlets and mobile brew bars. By end-2018, the coffee company had served 397,000 cups of coffee to 212,000 consumers through its cafés and mobile bars, and held more than 430 corporate events. However, in order to be truly sustainable, BB needed to expand internationally as the Singapore market was small and offered limited growth potential. Many of the neighbouring countries, being primarily coffee drinking markets, were attractive options. However, this also raised many concerns, as such a strategy could stretch the company's already limited financial and managerial resources. BB's business model was unique to Singapore, and the level of market development, technology, governance structures and government support varied significantly across countries in the region. Would BB have the expertise and resources to change or tweak its approach according to each country's market dynamics? Additionally, executing the expansion plans would require a comprehensive management structure to be put in place at BB. Could all of this be done without affecting the core values the company stood for?

This case study describes Tieqilishi (TQLS) Group's corporate social responsibility initiative in the Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan, China. Case A, set in 2016, describes the poverty-stricken Liangshan prefecture. Famous for 'cliff villages' (villages on top of high mountains accessible only via ladders on steep cliffs), Liangshan had the largest population of Yi ethnic people, who lived in the autonomous region governed by their own set of traditional customary laws. Inhabiting remote mountainous areas, the isolated Yi people were plagued by poverty, illiteracy, drug abuse and AIDS. Lei Wenyong, Chairman and Founder of TQLS, had to decide whether TQLS should participate in the poverty alleviation program at Liangshan. Headquartered in Chengdu, Sichuan, TQLS was a leading enterprise in China's agriculture industry, specialising in animal husbandry and the production of animal feed and processed food. TQLS had a history of making charitable contributions to society in the past, but investing in Liangshan would require careful consideration.Case B traces TQLS senior management's decision to proceed with the development of a pig farming industry in Liangshan in 2016, and the many challenges they faced along the way, such as stringent environmental regulations, delays in obtaining government loans, poor transport infrastructure and manpower shortages. Case C is set in 2017, and describes the short- and long-term measures undertaken by TQLS to overcome those challenges. The company's CSR projects in Liangshan proceeded well, and were marked by the co-founding of the Liangshan Commercial Poverty Alleviation Institute with the local government, collaborations with universities, setting up of training centres and Yi Cultural Study Centres, and plans to build primary schools in the villages. In this final part of the case, Lei came to the realisation that a more effective poverty reduction approach could be achieved through collaboration with other companies.

Supplement to case SMU493

Supplement to case SMU493